I painted this rock after learning more about Ernest Hemingway through a PBS documentary on You Tube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swAQ5HfLLIk).
He was a disaster in his last years, and took his own life.
He drank too much and his adventurous life presented him with twelve concussions.
I feel the rock, (which I left outside the Brick Road book store in Ellensburg in July, 2021), is an expression of the part of Hemingway he tried never to show. We all have a side like that if we are human, and we may be right to keep it hidden. It’s ugly.
He was adored and revered as an American writer that changed the world of Literature. He said he didn’t want to TELL the reader about a thing, he wanted to let the reader experience it through his words. And since then, American English teachers have urged the same from the young minds in their classrooms.
He’s also famous for giving writers the advice that all you have to do is “Write ONE TRUE SENTENCE. Write the truest sentence that you know."
Since I’m an English teacher, one would think I might want to write more about his style. But I never connected with his writing. Honestly, when I read any of his books, I felt drunk as I read them, and that put me off since reading and being drunk are just not a good combination. To me, that proves he was a powerful writer, and I accept that about him.
But what is the lesson that I personally extract from the life and death of Ernest Hemingway?
I’m not judging, I’m analyzing.
1. There was undoubtedly a genetic component to his depression and suicide. In fact, he was diagnosed with (but not treated for) hemochromatosis, a genetic blood disorder.. FOUR out of EIGHT members of his immediate family were unhappy enough that they ended their own life.
2. Having had twelve concussions probably caused CTE in Hemingway that led to all kinds of erratic behaviors. I feel that the knowledge of CTE should change America’s love affair with football. But no. Read about it here: https://concussionfoundation.org/CTE-resources/what-is-CTE .
Here is my one true sentence:
People are strange— Most of us, we look straight at a thing that is destroying us, we acknowledge its impact and keep walking towards it as though nothing can be done.
PLEASE RESPOND IN THE COMMENTS SECTION:
WHAT DO YOU THINK?? Do you do this? Why do we as a society or as individuals, continue behaviors that could literally destroy humanity?
